


Cradle to the death

by smkkbert



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Death, F/M, bali
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 22:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6773392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smkkbert/pseuds/smkkbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anonymous said: Hey I had this idea of prompt when reading you last fic: Felicity finding out she has cancer or something and they can’t heal her: she announce this to Oliver and it’s very angsty and a sad fluff! Thanks!! </p><p>(Tumblr prompt this is inspired by)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cradle to the death

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I chose to take some liberties, so it’s not cancer but ALS. Two years ago the mother of someone I knew died from it, so her story is the basis for this fic.

He would hold her hand when she was giving birth to their baby.

Their baby. It still felt so unreal, not matter how great those words sounded in his ear. He would probably have to think those words a little more often to get used to them; until he would get used to the thought that they were really having a baby.

Tommy would be a great name for a boy, maybe Laurel for a girl. Or would it be too weird to name their baby after his deceased ex-girlfriend? But then again their relationship had ended so long ago, and just like he himself Felicity had been friends with Laurel, so it probably wouldn’t be as weird as he thought it might be. Well, he would just ask Felicity for her name suggestions for their baby.

After she had announced her pregnancy to him of course.

As long as she hadn’t told him about it, he should probably continue to act like he knew nothing. Felicity certainly wanted to surprise him, and he didn’t want to ruin that for her. So when she would finally tell him which he hoped wouldn’t take too long, he would act just as surprised as he would have been if he hadn’t known already.

He just hoped that she was going to tell him soon because he didn’t think he was going to be able to hide his excitement much longer. In the two days since he had found out about her pregnancy, he had already mentally furnished the nursery, checked what birth classes were recommended in their area and searched the web for everything he could find on how to ensure a pregnant woman’s and the unborn baby’s health. And on top of that he just couldn’t stop smiling like an idiot the whole day, so John and Thea had actually already asked him if he had suffered a stroke or something.

But how was he supposed to hide his excitement when he was going to be a dad? A real dad who got to be there when his kid was born and every day before and after?

Because with this child he wouldn’t miss anything. Not a single damn thing.

When he saw her car turning into their driveway, he put the dishes away and dried his hands. His eyes watched closely when Felicity got out of the car and walked to the front door. She was rummaging in her purse and hence not seeing him at the window, giving Oliver the opportunity to just keep watching her without her noticing.

She was a little pale, making the shadows under her eyes seem even darker. She hadn’t slept much lately, mostly turning from one side to the other without finding sleep. It had only increased her tiredness, making her spend lazy days on the couch without even turning on her tablet. He had read that tiredness and sleeplessness were common problems for pregnant women. The hormones made them tired, but at the same time their sensitive breasts made it hard to find a good position to fall asleep. He would have to find a way for her to relax before she would collapse. Maybe a bubble bath could help.

Oliver closed his eyes, listening to the sounds he had remembered a long time ago, the sounds of Felicity coming back home from work. First he heard the front door being opened, followed by the clicking when it was shut behind her again. A low clinging told him that Felicity had dropped her keys to the bowl on the small table next to the door. His mind filled the silence with the sounds he couldn’t hear but imagined there would be when she took off her jacket. The closer the sounds of her steps came then, the wider grew the smile on his lips.

“What are you smiling about?”

Opening his eyes, Oliver turned around to where she was standing in the door between the kitchen and the living room. He took in her beautiful appearance, feeling his heartbeat fastening at the thought that had flashed through his mind again and again since he had found out – That woman in front of him was going to be his wife and the mother of his children.

How did he get to be so lucky?

“Oliver, you are still smiling at me. It’s a little scary,” Felicity added when he still didn’t answer.

“Am I not allowed to be happy that my fiancée is home?” Oliver asked back, pushing himself away from the kitchen counter that he had been leaning against and walking towards her until he was standing right in front of her. He put his hands to her hips, his thumbs casually brushing against her stomach, when he pulled her against him. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Felicity replied a little breathlessly.

Slowly Oliver leaned down and kissed her gently. His hands moved from her hips to her lower back, pulling her even closer against him and massaging the tight muscles around her spine because he knew that she had suffered from horrible backache those last weeks. His tongue traced the seam between her lips until she opened up to him, and he got to slip his tongue into her mouth, stroking over hers. Sighing, Felicity leaned against him, wrapping her arms around his neck and moving her hand through his short hair.

“How are you feeling?” Oliver asked when their lips parted, looking at her closely.

Felicity licked her lips shortly, probably chasing the taste of his lips on hers. The thought aroused him slightly, and that Felicity bit down on her bottom lip right after didn’t help with that either.

“There is something I need to tell you,” she stated, holding her breath.

Oliver had trouble keeping the smile hidden that threatened to form on his lips. She was going to tell him today, so in a few minutes he wouldn’t have to pretend not knowing about the fantastic news any longer. He could chat with her about names and tell her his plans for the nursery. He could touch her stomach, talk to their baby and kiss her soft skin.

“What’s going on?” he asked, trying to sound casually, but his voice didn’t miss the excitement he was feeling.

“I think we should sit down and-“

“Okay, I can’t keep pretending not to know anymore,” it burst out of Oliver before he could stop himself.

Though he knew he couldn’t take it back because now it was said, he still regretted not having better control over himself when he saw Felicity looking at him with eyes wide opened. She watched him closely when she asked, “What do you know?”

He chuckled quietly, pulling her back against him while he was answering, “I know that you are pregnant. Why? Is there something else you were keeping from me?”

Felicity opened her mouth to say something, but Oliver framed her face with his hands and slipped his tongue into her mouth before she got the chance to say anything else. He loved kissing her. It was like an addiction, a really healthy addiction.

“I know that you’re pregnant, and I don’t even have words to tell you how happy that makes me. Felicity, you and this baby, you mean everything to me, and I will spend the rest of my life making sure that you and he or she will know that I will never leave either of you. I am not your dad. I will stand with you and out child through everything, no matter what happens.”

He looked at her closely, making sure she could see in his eyes that he was saying the truth. From everything he knew about her, and he knew a lot about her, he also knew that it was very important to reassure her of his love and his willingness to stay with her now matter what. Her father had left her and her mom, but he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t leave his wife and his child. Never.

“Why-? How-? Why would you-? I mean-“ Felicity started over and over again, but broke off every time, instead just looking at him in question.

Oliver chuckled. “Two days back, I came to Palmer Tech to eat lunch with you, but Gerry said you weren’t there and that you had a doctor’s appointment. And lately you have been tired a lot, have had backache and didn’t eat much… I just put one and one together. And I know you wanted to surprise me, and I am so sorry for ruining that. I tried to pretend not to know, but then my excitement just-“

“Please stop.”

At her words Oliver looked at Felicity, immediately stopping to tell her about his excitement. The tears in her eyes made his heart skip a long beat.

Had something happened?  
Was the baby sick?  
Or had they lost it?

He had assumed that she hadn’t been telling him about the pregnancy because they hadn’t really talked about kids yet. They were engaged, but the wedding wasn’t planned yet. They hadn’t even set a date. So he had thought that had been what had kept her from telling him right away, but what if something was wrong? What if she hadn’t told him because the baby wasn’t okay, and she had just needed time to process that before sharing it with her?

“Felicity, what-?”

“Oliver, I am not pregnant.”

The words surprised him and even disappointed him though he still felt relief running through his veins. He had wanted a baby, so knowing that there wasn’t one like he had thought there would be disappointed him. But the thought of losing a baby had been so unbearable that he… He just knew that disappointment could be born more easily than the grief. At least in this case.

“I am so sorry,” he whispered, hugging Felicity and pressing his face against her neck to breathe in the scent of her skin and kiss her pulse point gently. “I am so sorry. I just… it just seemed to be the most logic conclusion, but… Were you at the doctor’s because you thought you were pregnant?”

“No, I… I knew I wasn’t pregnant. I took a test last week.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Felicity took in a deep breath and put her hands to his shoulders, pushing him a little away, so she could look at him. Oliver’s hands framed her face, his thumbs wiping away the wetness the few tears that had fallen had left on her cheeks. Looking him into the eyes, she took in another deep and sniffling breath.

“I… I didn’t really think that I was pregnant. I just… I think I was just… It was just the last thread of hope,” Felicity explained. “Oliver?”

His heart stood still. His breath got caught in his lungs. His skin prickled unpleasantly. His muscles tightened, making his whole body tense and stiff. This wasn’t good. Whatever Felicity was going to tell him, he knew it wasn’t good. Her voice was so small, an insecurity in the tone that he had barely ever heard there before, especially when she was saying his name.

“What is it?”

“The backache, the tiredness, the sleeping problems… they all come from-“ Felicity broke off, snuggling her face more into the touch of his hands. “I have ALS.”

Oliver felt like his whole world just stopped, just like time did. Everything focused down onto her. All he could feel was the softness of Felicity’s skin against his rough fingers. All he could see was the movements of her red painted lips though he couldn’t hear what she was saying over the echoing of Felicity’s words in his mind.

ALS. He didn’t know much about the disease, but he did know that people who suffered from it lost their ability to move and talk and swallow and finally breathe. It always ended with death. Death. Felicity would die. She would die like she almost died when the bullets had ripped through her body after their first engagement, only this time she would die so much more slowly and there be no coming back. She wouldn’t be resuscitated because even if they tried, she wouldn’t survive.

Her death would be a slow and painful process with death at its end.

He would have to find out more about it. He would have to find out everything about it. He needed to know how to heal it. He needed to know what he could do to-

“Oliver?”

Only now did Oliver snap out of his thoughts. He moved his hands down the sides of her face and over her neck and shoulders to her hands, taking them and putting them to his heart. He needed to feel the warmth of her body near to his heart, reassuring himself that she was still here with him and alive.

“I’m sorry. I was- I am-“

“If you need time to process this-“

“What-? What did the doctor say?” he interrupted her. He wrapped his one arm around her waist, pulling her a little closer and wordlessly signaling her that he did need time to process, but he didn’t need time alone. He needed to have her close. And he needed answers, he thought, screwing his eyes shut for a moment before taking in a deep breath and looking at her again. “What exactly did he say?”

“The usual length of survival is around three to five years, but the disease can be quite unpredictable, so it might be more or less.”

“And what- What do we do now?” Oliver asked, barely being able to form any words as he was still trying to process. Three to five years? It felt like a punch in the stomach. He had imagined spending the next fifty years with her. At least. “There has to be something we can do, right?”

“They can try to prolong the process and also treat the symptoms, but that’s all. There is no healing to this, at least not yet.” Felicity shrugged her shoulders, lowering her gaze to her hands on his chest for a short moment before she looked back at him. “Oliver, I said this before, and given the new circumstances, I will say it again because it wouldn’t be fair to-“

Oliver interrupted her with a kiss to her lips. He pulled her closer, so he could feel her heartbeat against his chest. His heart made some arrhythmic beats before it adjusted to the beat of her heart. It was what his heart usually did. It adjusted to her until they were beating in unison. He felt her melting against him with a sigh, and it only made him hold onto her more tightly.

“Given the new circumstances, _I_ will say again what I said before,” Oliver repeated her words from before when their lips parted, pulling back enough to look at her, but staying close enough that the tip of her nose brushed against her with every intake of breath. “For better or worse.”

Felicity nodded, leaning her forehead against his. “For better or worse.”

Oliver closed his eyes, breathing the same air as Felicity did.

“I would like to ask a second doctor for his opinion,” Oliver whispered after awhile.

“I don’t think he will come to any other result.”

“Still,” Oliver replied, pulling back a little to look her in the eyes. “Please.”

Felicity shrugged her shoulders, giving her consent before she leaned forward and rested her face against Oliver’s chest.

“Thanks for not leaving.”

“Never,” Oliver replied firmly and tightened his hold on her. “I will never leave you. I will stand with you through whatever might come. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Felicity nodded against his chest, pressing herself closer to the comforting warmth of his body.

“I will find a way to make sure you’re going to be fine again,” Oliver added after some time. “Someone will know what to do.”

“Oliver, I-“

Hastily he framed her face with his hands and kissed her, making sure she wouldn’t get to say the words he was sure would be crushing the last thread of hope he still had.

“Just… just let me try to find a way, okay?”

“Is that going to leave time to go back to Bali once more?”

“I will find a way to make sure you will be fine and then we can spend the rest of our lives in Bali. I promise,” Oliver added in a whisper before pulling her back against him and lowering his nose to the crown of her hair, breathing in her scent.

He wouldn’t accept it. He wouldn’t accept that she was going to die that long before her time. She was supposed be great in her job and change the world in the way she had always wanted to do. And if he was very lucky she would marry him and have children with him and…

He wouldn’t accept that a disease would take her from this world and from her. He had seen people come back from the dead. And they had thought she would never be able to walk again, and Curtis had found a way to make it happen nonetheless. This time would be the same. They had three to five years. That just had to be enough time for him to find a way to save her.

He just couldn’t accept losing her. He wouldn’t.

 

 

“I can’t accept this. I won’t.”

“Oliver-“

“No!” Oliver yelled, pulling his arm out of John’s firm grip. “They said the average was three to five years, sometimes longer and only rarely shorter. We have planned a wedding for the next month. And now-“

Oliver gestured towards the door to Felicity’s hospital room helplessly.

They had wanted to spend a lazy evening on the couch, just enjoying some movie and cuddling and maybe going through the short to-do list that was still left for their wedding. So shortly before the big day there were only some details they still had to go through, and Oliver had suggested getting them done as soon as possible, so their big day could finally come without any work left to do.

But Felicity had been tired all day. She had barely made it out of bed, only leaving it when he had suggested that she should and even then she had only walked from the bed to the couch where she had lain down and spend the rest of the day, barely moving. She hadn’t eaten anything and had refused to drink much. So Oliver had taken her to the hospital where she had been examined. It had turned out that her lungs were failing. She wasn’t going to make it through the night.

He had been promised three to five more years with her, and instead he was going to lose her only three months after she had been diagnosed.

And he was just supposed to accept that?

“I love her, John,” Oliver said with a sigh, feeling tears springing to his eyes. “I love her, and I can’t sit there and watch her die. I just can’t. I watched Tommy die, and I watched Laurel die. But I can’t- I can’t watch her die, John.”

“I know,” John answered, tears springing into his eyes, too. “I killed Andy. I watched Laurel die. And seeing Felicity die…”

John shook his head, disbelief and shock in his eyes, too.

“I wanted to marry her, and I wanted her to be the mother of my children,” Oliver said with a quiet sob, sitting down on one of the plastic chairs at the wall and hiding his face in his hands. “The day she told me that she was diagnosed with ALS I thought she was pregnant. I thought that was what she wanted to tell me that evening, but instead she told me that she was going to die and I-“

“I know,” John whispered when his friend’s voice broke with a sob, and he put a comforting hand to Oliver’s shoulder. “But Felicity is going to die the next hours, so what she needs right now is you. We all said our goodbyes, and-“

Now it was John’s voice that broke, and Oliver put his hand on his friend’s forearm, squeezing gently when looking at him.

“Aren’t you going to be there when… it happens?”

“Thea, Curtis, Lyla,… we are all going to wait outside and give the two of you some privacy.”

“Did someone call Donna and Quentin?”

“Lyla did,” John answered in a whisper. “They are trying to get here as soon as possible, but they probably won’t make it before…”

Oliver nodded, taking in another deep breath and wiping away the tears that had fallen. Donna and Quentin had hesitated for a long time before they had decided to go on their honeymoon. Felicity had persuaded them of it, saying that she was okay, and she wasn’t planning on leaving the earth before her wedding.

And now she would die before their wedding. Her mother and stepfather wouldn’t be there, and there was nothing Oliver could do to make it any easier. Because as much as he wanted to spend Felicity comfort and be with her, he felt unable to.

When Felicity had been shot by Darhk’s men, he hadn’t been there after a long time later. He had sworn himself never do to that again. He had sworn himself never again to not be there when she needed him. But he just couldn’t sit there and watch her die.

He had barely accepted that she was going to die in the next _years,_ not hours.

“You gotta go in there and be with Felicity,” John stated after awhile. “Felicity needs you in there and next to her right now. And you will forever regret it if you’re not there.”

 Oliver nodded without moving any more, feeling unable to. “I can’t be strong, John. Not when she is the one dying right in front of me.”

“So don’t be strong. Just be there.”

Again Oliver nodded without getting up.

“She is going to die.”

“I know.”

“It’s not fair.”

“I know.”

Oliver took in another deep breath, getting up from the chair with wobbly legs.

He had to go. He had to see Felicity and stand by her side for the rest of the night. During the last three months since she had been diagnosed Felicity had cried in his arms for several nights, frustrated and scared about what had and still would happen to her, he had told her that he was going to be by her side every step on the way. He couldn’t break that promise to her now that it was getting serious.

John squeezed his shoulder in wordless support when Oliver stepped past him.

Oliver felt like his feet were growing heavier with every step he took until he stood right in front of the door behind which Felicity was lying in a hospital bed, dying. His heart sunk at the thought, and every cell in his body worked against him when lifted his hand to open the door, unwilling and unable to accept what would happen tonight.

The room was dark. Only a small lamp on the table next to the bed spent some light. Felicity was lying in bed, her skin seeming even paler compared to the dark shadows under her closed eyes. Lyla was sitting next to her side, holding her hand while talking to her with calm voice.

Felicity was sleepy. Her lungs didn’t export enough of the carbon dioxide, so it desposited in her body, making her tired. The doctor had told him that she wasn’t going to suffer. She wasn’t going to be put through a fight between life and death, desperately gasping for air. She would just peacefully fall asleep.

“Oliver’s here,” Lyla whispered, “so I am going to give you two some privacy, okay?”

“Okay,” Felicity replied barely audible. “Thanks for coming.”

“Sure,” Lyla whispered, getting up on her feet and leaning over Felicity to kiss her cheek and whisper her goodbye in her ear, not loud enough for even Oliver to hear.

Felicity smiled tiredly and feebly squeezed Lyla’s hand. Oliver saw tears in Lyla’s eyes when she walked past him, squeezing his forearm in the same wordless support her husband had ensured Oliver of before he had come in here.

Oliver waited until the door was closed behind her before he stepped closer to Felicity. He took her hand and kissed her temple, making her smile and open her eyes slightly.

“You’re here.”

“Where else would I be?” he asked, pulling the chair closer and sitting down right next to her. “I promised to be here.”

“I wouldn’t have nailed you down on it,” Felicity whispered with weak voice, turning her head to get a better look at him. “You watched so many people you love die, I wouldn’t have-“

“I wish we would have gotten the chance to go to Bali for our honeymoon,” Oliver interrupted her gently. “I loved Bali.”

“Me, too.”

“We could have spent all day at the beach, sitting in the sand with the water playing around our feet. I would have been holding you all the time and whispered to you how much I love you.”

“That was my favorite day of the five months we spent away,” Felicity whispered, taking in a shaking breath. “Will you go back to Bali?”

“ _We_ will,” Oliver answered. “We will go back to Bali together.”

Felicity looked at him for a long moment, smiling sadly with tears in her eyes. “I don’t think so.”

“Let me prove you wrong.”

He got up from the chair, slipped off his shoes and leather jacket and carefully lifted Felicity’s torso from the mattress, so he could slide into bed behind her. Her back rested against his chest, her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her tightly, just like he had done that one special day in Bali.

“Close your eyes,” Oliver whispered unnecessarily since her eyes had already fallen shut on their own. “We’re back in Bali.”

“We are?” Felicity asked tiredly, turning her head a little, so her forehead rested against his neck.

“Yes, we are,” Oliver whispered, barely being able keep his voice from breaking. So he took in a deep breath before he continued, “You can see the endless ocean in front of us. The waves make splashing sound. We are sitting so close you can actually smell the salt of the water that touches our toes with every wave. The warm sun is prickling on your face.”

Felicity made a humming tone, making Oliver know that she could indeed picture the two of them being back there like he was describing it.

“And you are almost asleep already, enjoying our lazy day, when you feel my stubble brush against your ear,” Oliver continued with soft voice and lowered his lips until his stubble was indeed brushing against her ear. “I love you, Felicity. I love you so much. And maybe we are not legally married, but you’re the love of my life, and for me that will always count more than anything else. Thank you for lightening my life in the way that you did. I don’t know where I would be today if you had never come into my life...”

He kept whispering to her how much he loved her and how much impact she had had on his life. He ensured her that she had made the world a better place like she had always wanted to do, and he promised to honor her memory by continuing to do good and always find another way like she had once told him to. He did so for hours.

Three months ago he had imagined holding her hand when she was giving birth do their baby. Instead he held her while she was dying and even several hours later, unable to let go.


End file.
